Jack W. Birch

Locating Gifted Children In Junior High Schools

THIS is a report on a study of the relative efficiency and effectiveness of seven different means of locating gifted children in junior high schools. The major purpose of the investigation was to discover which procedure or which combination of commonly used procedures would prove best. The importance of finding gifted children has long been acknowledged (2) _Only in the last quarter-century have the individual intelligence testing tools been shaped and sharpened sufficiently to allow psychologists to identify gifted children with a very high degree of certainty (4). The international events of recent years have heightened the urgency for the prompt and early discovery of all gifted children-those who show their capacity through exceptional achievements and those in whom great potentialities are latent-in order that they may be given the best possible guidance toward self.realization through education and training (1). The gifted children in a junior high school could bediscovered if every child in the school were indio

Comparison of a Full-Time Mainstreaming Program and a Resource Room Approach:

A study comparing the effects of a full-time mainstreaming approach for handicapped students with a resource room approach for similar students is reported. Results of the study suggest that the full-time mainstreaming approach, known as the Adaptive Learning Environments Model, exceeds the resource room approach in attaining desirable classroom processes, student attitudes, and student achievement in basic skills.

Effective Special Education in Regular Classes

An educational approach is described that accommodates, in regular classes, a much wider range of individual student differences than usual. Reported results-from a study of program implementation and related outcomes suggest that the program, known as the Adaptive Learning Environments Model (ALEM), can be implemented effectively in a variety of settings and that favorable student outcome measures coincide with high degrees of program implementation.

A Follow-Up Study of 52 Learning Disabled Adolescents

This study was designed to document, four years later, the progress of 52 LD adolescents who entered a special education program in the ninth grade. The sample were “typical” LD adolescents: old for their grade placement, with severe reading retardation and moderate math retardation. Theoretically, these students should have been in 12th grade at the time of follow—up. In fact, 16 were still enrolled in a special education high school program; seven were still in high school but in regular classes full—time; twenty—four had stopped attending high school; and five could not be located. Thirty—four students (all those still in school and 11 of the dropouts) were retested on academic skills. Results indicated impressive gains for all students although approximately half the achievement growth had taken place in the first year of the LD program. The 11 dropouts were also interviewed about the circumstances of their school leaving. A majority reported that they had been encouraged to leave school before graduation because of persistent, academic, behavior and attendance problems. Data available to the school district at the time of placement into the ninth—grade special education program were utilized in a step—wise discriminant analysis, for predicting status at follow—up. The discriminant analysis was quite poor at identifying students who would leave school.

Is Any Identification Procedure Necessary

It certainly is advisable to locate gifted children and to see that they receive individually appropriate education. However, that does not mean that it is necessary or even desirable to institutionalize a process called &dquo;identification,&dquo; especially one that embodies weaknesses and dangerously destructive tendencies. The prevailing &dquo;identification placement&dquo; paradigm needs to be replaced by the preferred &dquo;assess educate&dquo; model, one in which the separate &dquo;identification&dquo; step is replaced by curriculum-imbedded and curriculum-determinitive processes for surfacing and serving gifted students. The &dquo;identification&dquo; commonly practiced has negative and limiting implications for the education of gifted children and youth. The most widely used &dquo;identification&dquo; method is narrowly conceived. Often, in reality, it belies or markedly warps its published purposes, results in the misuse of psychological tests, leaves out potentially useful contributions from professionals and other concerned adults, and has little or no direct linkage with instruction or, more broadly, with individualized education. It is difficult to justify the use of an &dquo;identification&dquo; process that is loaded with such weaknesses. It is even more difficult to justify it when the very underlying rationale for a separate, gatekeeper-type &dquo;identification&dquo; could be displaced with profit by processes inherent in the &dquo;assess educate&dquo; model, in which locating and educating the children are designed to more than interface, but to interact. First, the negative and limiting implications of the prevailing &dquo;identification&dquo; scheme will be pointed out. That will set the stage for an introduction to the location of gifted children as accomplished by the &dquo;assess educate&dquo; approach. Finally, five very important principles for school districts regarding identification policies and practices will be presented, their rationales being drawn from the previous material.

Special Education as a Profession.

Sequence Description During this rigorous practicum, candidates will their work with their co-teachers as they transition into fulltime teaching responsibilities. The experiences in this practicum are designed to allow candidates to apply their accumulated knowledge and skills, and measure their growth in the areas of planning, instruction, and assessment while reflecting on what teacher candidates should know and be able to do prior to endorsement. Candidates will work with their Co-teacher five days per week while being supervised at the school site by their University Supervisor. Monday night seminars will be held on campus and lead by the University Supervisor to encourage critical thinking around teaching experiences and issues. During this practicum, candidates will also complete the Impact on Student Learning Project. Candidates will administer, analyze, and reflect upon their unit. CIEP 512 Seminar is the culmination of the teacher preparation program in both demand and expectation. Candidates will be observed and evaluated in a formative but rigorous manner as they progress toward mastery of their professional skills. This practicum will challenge students within their teaching context to examine their perspectives, understandings and practices in teaching learning and leading.

Merits of special class, resource, and itinerant plans for teaching partially seeing children.

A review of pertinent literature concerning advantages and disadvantages of three organizational schemes for the education of partially seeing children is presented. Advocates of each plan have given arguments and pronouncements but little research evidence in support of their favored arrangement. Findings of recent studies are compared with the stated advantages for each pattern.

Effect of Rest on Test Scores of Physically Handicapped and Nonhandicapped Children.

Two factors which should be considered while testing the physically handicapped are increased rest periods and increased time limits. Doll (1951), Newland (1963), Johnson (1967), and Anastasi (1968) have indicated that the physically handicapped are susceptible to fatigue if they are subjected to standardized test conditions. Therefore, these researchers advocate altering the manner of test administration and the time requirements if test scores obtained by crippled individuals are to be compared with those of nonhandicapped persons. Birch, et a1. (1966) compared standardized achievement test scores of partially sighted children with scores of children who had no educationally significant visual loss. Both groups were tested with and without time limits. and it was found that the test scores of the handicapped were lowered when they were subjected to standardized time limits. The purpose of this study was to determine if a rest period given between sections of the, Advanced Stanford Achievement Test (ASAT) would increase the test scores of physically handicapped chilo dren,

Patterns of clinical services for exceptional children

This is the first of a series of four articles on clinical services for exceptional children solicited both from the standpoint of wide geographical sampling and from the standpoint of varied conceptions of just what constitutes such services. Dr. Birch presents an overview of types of such services which special education folks should know exist, or should cause to exist. These views are, of course, those of Dr. Birch.

Relationships of Socioeconomic Background and School Performance of Partially Seeing Children

imprinted with the models name more frequently when the model had practiced charity (Study I: x2=15.98, df=l, p<.OOI; Study II: x 2 = 4.08, df= I, p<.05). The preachings of the model also significantly affected childrens attitudes in Study I (F=15.376, df=2/96, p<.OOI) and marginally in Study II (p=.061), as children gave higher ratings to the model when he preached charitable and neutral material than when he had preached greed. Learning disabled subjects differed from normal subjects on three measures of errors. They committed a greater number of errors in recognition of the models words (Study I: x2 =15.23, p<.OOI; Study II: x 2 = 2.78, p<.05 two-tailed), a greater number of errors in recognition of the models actions (Study I: x 2 = 6.99, p<.OI; Study II: x 2 = 6.75, p<.OI), and a greater number of errors in playing the bowling game (Study I: x 2 =10.52, p<.OI; Study II: x2 = 6.75, p<.OI).